WashU or Rice?

mdphd92
Wed, 02 May 2018 05:33:55 +0000

Congratulations! Rice is an amazing school. And you said you were “anti-frat”, and a bit of WashU social life does seem to be based on fraternities.

About your feelings, I know people say to trust their gut, but it turns out that human beings are actually not very good at predicting what will make them happy. This is explained in the book Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. You might want to get the book, but here’s a brief summary:

https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2010/03/pleasure-by-proxy

Instead, studies show that other people’s experiences turn out to be a better predictor of what will make us happy. With that in mind, Rice students are among the happiest students, according to surveys such as those done by Princeton Review. So their experience does mean something.

Best wishes on your journey!